Sweden Jobless Rate Climbs To 7.7%

(RTTNews) - The Swedish unemployment rate increased in December after falling in the previous two months, figures from Statistics Sweden showed on Friday.

The unadjusted jobless rate climbed to 7.7 percent in December from 7.1 percent in the previous month.

In the same month last year, the unemployment rate was 6.9 percent.

The number of unemployed people rose to 433,000 in December from 400,000 in November.

Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 accounted for 135,000 unemployed people, or 22.6 percent of the workforce, the agency said.

Data showed that the employment rate declined to 68.3 percent from 69.2 percent, representing 5.188 million employed people.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the jobless rate rose to 8.2 percent from 7.9 percent.